What is a Capacitor?

Introduction

Capacitors are basically tanks. which stores electricity like a battery. But capacitors are not batteries.

You can also call a rotating fly wheel is also a capacitor.

 

So what is a capacitor?

Definition

A system of two isolated conductors of any shape and size arranged near each other in any manner.

So basically capacitor is a device for storing electrical energy, consisting of two conductors that are in the close proximate position and insulated from each other with non-conductive material. 

A simple example of such a capacitor is the parallel plate capacitor. If positive plate `A` consists of total charge +Q and negative plate `B` consists of total charge -Q, and there is a voltage between the two plates which is V 

so the capacitance (C) is C=Q/V

units are, C(farad) = Q(qulomb)/V(volt)

Here I am not going to teach you like a physics teacher about what is capacitor and what is capacitance. 

If you already watched my video on what is capacitor, you might know that we use capacitors to store energy for a small fraction of time. If the capacitance is high the capacitor can hold more charge if the capacitance is low, the capacitor can hold a small charge from the same battery. 

For example, 

suppose we take a 9V battery here and connect it with the terminals of the capacitor. Now the charge is flowing and stored in the capacitor.

I also fixed a small LED light with the capacitor. when we disconnect the battery you can see the LED will glow for a small time. 

You have to know the types of capacitors,

so there are mainly 2 types of capacitors

1. Polarized Capacitor
2. Non-polarized Capacitor

You noticed in your electronic circuit board there are many types of capacitors and resistances. some capacitors have printed -ve and +ve but some don't. 

1st of all I am talking about Bi-polar or DC capacitors. Basically, when we convert AC voltage to DC voltage we use Diodes, the diode can not give us pure DC voltage. So we use a capacitor, that pure the DC voltage. 

You can think it like a mini tank and a plus like water. A peristaltic pump doesn't give a regular flow of water, but if you need a flow that is terbulance free, what ill you do?

just connect a small tank which will store  a small amount of water. and at the bottom of this tank there is a whole and that is the output of the tank. 

so when you apply water from the peristaltic pump to the tank, the tank will store some water and at the same time from the bottom hole you will get he terbulance free water. 

There are many capacitors used in industry now days, in almost every applications,

your mobile or your computer, TV, fridge, fan, washing machine, servers, & etc. 

So this is the short article about Capacitors.If you want to know about capacitor with visual and animations, you can watch my video on my youtube channel. Click Here.